Comfort is key in a home built for entertaining

The traditional Christmas tree in the family room that leads into the kitchen.

Photograph by: Pat McGrath
, The Ottawa Citizen

Yvonne Bateman is an unconventional Christmas girl. And her husband Robert Bateman is her biggest supporter. Instead of loading her east-side home with holly berries and chubby Santas, the petite package of energy follows colour themes, starting with a longtime favourite, purple, with restrained helpings of turquoise and sprinkles of silver.

"I love Christmas. It is my favourite holiday," says the speech pathologist, who co-owns Communicare Therapy with her husband and a second couple. "I am pretty well the boss of Christmas and Rob goes along with what I do. I like the lights. I like the festivities. I like the family time," says the mother of three: hockey-mad goalie, Logan, 14, who plays for the Junior 67's; competitive hip hop and tap dancer, Danica, 16; and eldest daughter, Kayleigh, 18, who lands back home this weekend from her first semester at Dalhousie University.

Yvonne remembers being four or five, coming downstairs to a dark room on Christmas morning and being mesmerized by the lights in a doll house. Her father made the large doll house over many weeks and her mother wallpapered the walls and made clothes for the tiny dolls.

"My mother made a big deal out of Christmas and now I like to do the same thing."

It's a hectic household with parents balancing a busy business and busy children.

Yvonne and Robert have migrated back to their childhood roots, returning to build a spectacular stone home on a winding street edged by large trees and mature hedges in Rothwell Heights. Yvonne's parents still live a few doors away and Robert's mother is nearby.

The two connected at a ByWard Market restaurant when they were 19 and on a holiday break from first year at university. She was attending Carleton and he was at Waterloo. The two share the same birthday, Dec. 13. They are both 48 and, yes, there were party plans this week.

"We like to entertain, especially at Christmas," she says, while describing how they decorated in late November to celebrate her mother's 70th birthday.

This is a sunny house designed for easy entertaining, with open spaces and loads of cupboards and drawers to hide away the mess of everyday living, from stinky hockey equipment to school bags, coats and boots.

There is the prerequisite spice drawer in the kitchen and an unique deep drawer designed to hold cooking oils, vinegar and other tall bottles needed for successful recipes. "Everyone sees the oil drawer and wants one," says Yvonne, who gives credit to André Godin, owner of André Godin Design, for the drawer and many of the details in the 4,800-square-foot house that was a finalist this fall in the Housing Design Awards organized by the Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association.

The Batemans interviewed several architects and designers before settling on Godin in the spring of 2007. "He listened and he got what we wanted right away," says Yvonne, who admits she loves shopping. She gathered hundreds of clippings and files before starting the design.

The house unfolds gently from the large foyer with sight lines leading to a window overlooking the backyard playground that includes a pool, hot tub and privacy thanks to large trees and a tall cedar hedge. Large windows let light flood into the house, which feels warm thanks to wood detailing around the fireplace in the great room and ceiling details that define spaces, starting with grids above the sectional sofa and circles over the round table off the kitchen.

The three Bateman siblings command the second floor, while the parents are tucked into a main-floor master bedroom with views over the backyard.

"I didn't want to feel like I was walking on eggshells in my own home," says Yvonne. "This is not a show home. It is a family home. I don't like a lot of clutter and fussy things."

This is also her holiday mantra for decorating. Christmas is not fussy at the Batemans, but it's packed with turquoise and purple stylin'.

Large urns of birch saplings, turquoise ribbons and silver guard each side of the front door. Inside the foyer, turquoise swags hang on stone pillars and a huge wreath is on the back window. Tiny red lights twinkle in the night sky in the backyard.

There is an artificial tree in the great room, decorated in Yvonne's favourite colours, and small trees against another set of stone pillars.

Delicate silver stars hang in the bay window hugging the kitchen's breakfast table, while it's a decidedly more formal affair in the large dining room when family and friends sit on purple upholstered chairs around a large wooden table. "Dinners are lasting longer since we have had these chairs," she says.

Christmas gets more traditional, leaning toward red and wood in the sunroom, with a second tree and fully decorated mantel over the wood fireplace. This is where the couple likes to relax on Christmas Eve, sharing a glass of wine and anticipation of the day to come.

Logan is pressing his grandparents to sleep over so they will be close on Christmas morning, speeding up the time between opening stockings, breakfast and opening more presents. Negotiations at the Bateman house, like the NHL, are still ongoing.

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